10760 Manchester part II Mini-M/Cryptocoryne+CRS playground

The other thread for this tank encompassed over 35 pages and 3 years and 3 months of my journey from Planted Idiot to whatever I am now. So figured it was time to start a fresh one because this tank is completely different in just about every aspect from what it once was.

This tank is a low tech place for my CRS. It used to have pressurized Co2 and all that jazz but IME CRS are much happier with nothing else being done to it. They are finicky creatures by nature so why try to make them angry? Since it is low tech plant choice is somewhat limited and I found that Crypts offer such a large variety of choices and are actually quite interesting plants. There is a piece of DW that I have had for a few years and it has had everything from Fissidens, mosses (flame/xmas/java) and whatever else you can think of attached to it. Well if you have ever had an old piece of DW you know that no matter what you do to it ( scrubbed and boiled this thing for over 2 hours twice!) something will remain and sprout back off of it. Right now I believe it has fissidens and peacock moss growing out of it.

My CRS are from some stock I purchased from a member about 2 years ago. The lived happily and became berried when they should have but the babies never survived for more then a couple of days. Over the next 6-8 months they all died except for three from what I believe was old age. As hard headed as I am I thought that because I have AS the shrimp would be just fine if I used my rock hard tap water for WC's. WRONG. So there were three left and I had to make a choice, either let them all die and go back to snowballs or quit being stupid and get a RO system that would not only make your shrimp happy but be great for your discus and your tanks with harder to make happy plants. I purchased this system and ever since then my shrimp have bounced back from the 3 and are now a happy and thriving colony that includes some beautiful S+, SS and even a couple SSS. More about these when I get home maybe. There are also 6 Corydoras Habrosus, 5 clithon coronas (4 bumble bee nerites and 1 black nerite).

I had a good amount of C.Parva in the front as I wanted this to be my foreground. It has been a long time and is filling in but you cannot hurry c.parva, it will only grow slower. I also purchased a package from a member a few months back that included c.wendtii (bronze I believe) and c.willisi x lucens. You will see that in the back right corner the willisi c lucens has gone pretty crazy and the bronze is the main focal point I believe.

About two months ago I purchased a C.Ideii from Aaront that was a gorgeous specimen. Of course it melted but after a month or so it came back and I now have 3. This was the plant that got my interest in crypts going.

A few weeks ago I got a C.Nurii from GG. It melted and has yet to return but Im hopeful.

Then just today I received a nice pack from Aaron that included
C.cordata'Thailand', C.noritoi, C.bangkanensis 'Dwarf', C.bangkanensis 'Giant',
C.zukalii, C.sp.'Kota Tingi', C.wendtii 'De Witt' and C.Becketii. These were just planted so please dont mind the cloudyness.

will sharpie do anything in the water that could hurt your shrimps and other livestock?

Thanks. Next time I'll try to turn off the KIA marquee so that huge reflection isn't in the pic.

I guess well see about the sharpie but since we (people) usecthem all the time with no serious side effects I figured it should be fine. I actually put some staples white correction tape ( that roll on white out that doesn't need to dry before writing on it) on the back of one if them to make the writing more visible. But the closer I came to putting that crypt in the tank the more I worried about it. So I just redid another without the tape on it. Well see about that one.

Looks good Brandon. The crypts are growing along good. What are you going to do with the BBA? If you spot treat it, be careful of your subwassertang. Im sure you already knew that. Did some of the CRS have babies? It looks like theres more this time. Maybe its from taking the prefilter off and they came out of hiding though. How long have you been using osmocote? I love it for the $$ If you get tired of looking at it, you can poke them back down easily with a dowel rod or something to that effect. Excellent tank, I hope those crypts fill out nice!!!

Looks good Brandon. The crypts are growing along good. What are you going to do with the BBA? If you spot treat it, be careful of your subwassertang. Im sure you already knew that. Did some of the CRS have babies? It looks like theres more this time. Maybe its from taking the prefilter off and they came out of hiding though. How long have you been using osmocote? I love it for the $$ If you get tired of looking at it, you can poke them back down easily with a dowel rod or something to that effect. Excellent tank, I hope those crypts fill out nice!!!

I'm not going to do a damn thing about it! If your talking about the spot in the small clump of Parva, that has been there for months. Almost as long as I can remember. If your talking about on the DW (which makes sense because of the SWS reference) then again, nothing. That wood has had so much BBA on it over the years I now just look at it as some wood rug! SWS is some weird stuff. Seriously it was at least two years ago that I got a plant pack from some one when it was introduced to the tank. After a few weeks I took it out because I could find no aesthetic value to it whatsoever. But now that it somehow affixed itself to the DW (this DW is a plant Whore, its had every root in it at one time or another since I got it!) I think it looks cool and will allow it to do as it wishes.

With BBA the only time I have found it to be a nuisance is when it is in a high tech tank and its growing on the plants. Sure, a few of the older leaves near to the surface might have a bit but I just trim them if they get to hairy.

My CRS breed like their on hormones or something. Two-Three weeks ago I sent off a lot of them and was certain that I got rid of most the small guys. Its amazing what 3-4 berried females can do in a tank they like the parameters of in a short amount of time.

Its RM complete. I actually forgot I had it in there until you said something.

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